1 Formal Notations and Tools for addressing both Safety and Usability concerns for Interactive Systems Philippe Palanque LIIHS-IRIT University Paul Sabatier Toulouse - France

2 Overview of LIIHS-IRIT (1) Research themes Software Engineering for Human-Computer Interaction Formal description techniques and tools Visual notations More dealing with modeling power than with usability of notations Application domains Air traffic control Military systems (command & control systems) Web applications

3 Overview of LIIHS-IRIT (2) LIIHS 6 tenured people mainly HCI (CS and human factors) 5 PhD students IRIT about 400 people (mainly in CS) Current projects RTN ADVISES (Analysis Design and Validation of Interactive Safety-critical Error-tolerant Systems) 4 years (starting 11/2002) MISCC (Multimodal Interactive Systems for Command and Control) 3 years starting 01/2003 SPIDER Web (Specification and Prototyping for user Interface Design, Engineering and Re-engineering for the Web ) started July 2002 (2 years)

4 We are what we publish ;-) Human-Computer Interaction BCS HCI, DSVIS, EHCI, HCI Aeronautics, INTERACT, Interacting with Computers Objects Technology OOPSLA, ECOOP, DOA Formal Methods ATPN (Petri Net conference), FMOODS Visual Languages Int. Journal on Visual Languages and Computing Model-Based Approaches CADUI, TAMODIA, IEEE Rapid System Prototyping Web Applications Human Factors and the Web

5 Main Results Relevant to EUD-Net PetShop A formal notation: ICOs An interactive editor: PetShop User-centered design methods Linking tasks, scenarios, system and user models Design rationale (not presented here) Vilage (work with S. Chatty at CENA) A notation: Whizz An editor: Whizz'ed

6 WidgetEventService PlaceType PlanesPlaneLabeClickuserAssume AssumedPl anes PlaneButtonClick userOpenMenu 3)Activation ObCS Element Feature Rendering method Place Planes token entered p.show() 4)Rendering 2)Behaviour 1)Presentation

7 PetShop Highly interactive tool support for the ICO notation Formal methods can be usable (and useful beyond n! calculation) “Shortening the Path from Specification to Prototype” … to practically nothing Model-Based The specification model is embedded and interpreted at run-time WYMIWYR (what you model is what you run) to reduce gaps in interpretation (Norman's model) No “Modes” : no “automation surprises” The model is editable and interpretable at any time Allows for interactive prototyping of new interaction scenarios

8 Requirements Specification Architecture design Detailed design Unitary tests Implementation and test Maintenance Validation Coding Preliminary needs Prototype User's evaluation no adequate ? yes Requirements Final System Requirements Formal specifications Hi-fidelity prototype Software Architecture & verification PetShop

9 User Centered Design Methods Mapping Input Task model Scenario CTTE Formal Description of the System High-fidelity prototyping PetShop

10 VILAGE (1) Initially developed for Air Traffic Controllers Interactive prototyping of highly interactive applications (post-WIMP) Build and test prototypes in a modeless way

11 VILAGE (1) A data flow model A set of basic building bricks Strongly typed connection Event listeners Tempo Segment Trajectoire POINT

12 VILAGE (3) Editing Zone Simulation Zone Tool Palete Dialogue Zone

13 Safety Critical Interactive Systems Safety Critical Systems Software Engineers System centered Reliability Safety requirements (certification) Formal specification Verification / Proof Waterfall model / structured Archaic interaction techniques Interactive Systems Usability experts User centered Usability Human factors Task analysis & modeling Evaluation Iterative process / Prototyping Novel Interaction techniques

14 What are we aiming at ? Kind of applications (one application, every kind of applications) Kind of User Interfaces (basic, complex) Kind of users (skills, expertise in the domain, …) Spreadsheets are really good for building a fairly reduced kind of application, basic UI and by a significant amount of users L. Lamport "Automaton is a formal description technique dedicated to the specification of stacks